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From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki
Onyibe Emmanue Chinonso would have been a graduate by now and would probably have started working. But that isn’t the case.
Instead, he would still have to go back to Ebonyi State University (EBSU) to continue his education, at a time his mates have already concluded their mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, with many of them out of the labour market.
Onyibe was in his final year at the university when he was arrested by soldiers and DSS officials at a military checkpoint on Murtala Muhammed bridge, Kogi, while returning from Abuja with his lawyer uncle, Pius Awoke for offences that they remain unaware of till date.
Onyibe and Awoke went to Abuja to witness the arraignment and trial of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu on July 26, 2021. They never knew the trip would waste three years of their lives.
The soldiers who arrested them handed them over to the DSS and they were taken to DSS headquarters, Kogi. From there, they were moved to the DSS headquarters in Abuja, and from there, to Minna, Niger State, before freedom came their way on 21st June, 2024.
Onyibe said about eight others who were in the same Toyota Sienna with him and his uncle are still languishing in custody. Of the 11 occupants of the vehicle, only two drivers, alongside Awoke and Onyibe, have been set free. Others are still in detention. The two drivers, whose names could not be ascertained, were released two months after their arrest, it was gathered.
“There are still so many stories that are yet untold and it is by publicising them that will help our brothers languishing there to get their freedom. Even 32 people arrested in Port Harcourt in 2020 during the EndSARS protest are still there,” Onyibe, who looks malnourished and dehumanised, told Saturday Sun.
The Computer Science Studies student said the situation in the DSS cells led to the death of some of the detainees. He noted that when he and his uncle, Pius Awoke, a lawyer, were released in June, the operatives attempted to thumbprint their fingers before releasing them but couldn’t find any blood for the thumb printing. He insisted that blood had already dried in their bodies because of what they passed through in detention.
He insisted that neither he nor his uncle was a member of IPOB/ESN, insisting that they only went to Abuja to witness the arraignment and trial of Kanu
“I am not an IPOB/ESN member. I am also not a lawyer. But the arraignment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was in the public domain. Many people were in Abuja that day; we were not the only people that went to witness the arraignment. So, I just went there to see what was going on there. The fact that I am a Computer Science Studies student doesn’t mean that I will not learn any other thing or have ideas about other things that are of public interest. So, I just went there, not as a lawyer or IPOB/ESN member,” he stated.
He narrated how the soldiers and DSS officials arrested them and released them while they were returning from that Abuja trip in July 2021. His words: “On our way back, reaching a military checkpoint at Murtala Mohammed Bridge, Kogi, they stopped our vehicle and asked us to wait patiently, that DSS officials are coming from Abuja and that they were searching for one Sienna car. So they said we should wait.
“So, we had to stop and we alighted from the vehicle. We were less concerned because we didn’t have any implicating thing on us. We didn’t have anything in mind that something dangerous was about to happen. So, we waited patiently till 30 minutes and DSS officials arrived with their squad, with guns and other things.
When they came, they asked us to go to our vehicle and we went to the vehicle. There were two Sienna vehicles at the back of our own. So, they checked those ones fast and cleared them. When those two Sienna left, they came to our own and ordered us to surrender our phones and we surrendered our phones to them.
“They brought out a paper that had some numbers written on them. They dialled the numbers on our various phone. At the end, they didn’t see anything and returned the phones to us. They went to the back of our vehicle and discussed within themselves and came back and demanded our phones and we gave them the phones. They went through the phones and didn’t see anything again and they returned it to us and we entered our vehicle to move. They came back for the third time and asked for our phones again.
That time, they asked who among us was called Blood and we told them that we don’t have somebody bearing such name. They checked our phones for the third time and didn’t see anything and they asked if any person has any other phone and we told them none of us had an extra phone. They said they were going to search our vehicle and we alighted from our vehicle. They search our vehicle and they didn’t see anything.
“They started searching our bags and our pockets. So, in the process of searching our bags and pockets again, they found an extra battery from one of us called Uduma Kenneth.
They asked him where the phone that had that battery was, and he told them that he didn’t have two phones, that the extra battery was for the phone they collected. He told them that the battery in his phone was weak and that he had to get the extra battery so that his phone would not go off. They said he was lying and started hitting him with the butt of their guns and with cassava sticks. They tied our hands to our backs, handcuffed some of us and tied some others with ropes. I was tied with a rope. They asked us to enter the vehicle and we entered the vehicle. They drove the vehicle and took us to DSS headquarters, Lokoja, Kogi State.
“We were there at the DSS office Lokoja till the next day, July 27. In the morning, we asked them our offences and they said somebody ordered our arrest. They said the person was in Abuja, and that they would release us in Abuja if we were not the ones they were looking for. We had no other option; we had to go with them. Before getting to the DSS headquarters, Abuja, they blindfolded us because they bought black nose masks along the way. After blindfolding us, they drove us inside the DSS headquarters and handed us over to some officials there. Our eyes were still blindfolded. They ordered one of them to take us inside the cell and that person came and dragged all of us to their underground cell known as Basement 2 by DSS.
“When we were there, we requested food because we were very hungry. We didn’t eat anything since they arrested us on that 26 July. So, when we requested food, one of the DSS officials went and brought leg cuffs and came back. He ordered all of us to come out and we came out. He put the leg cuffs on us. Then he went by the corner of the building and urinated in an empty bottle. Then he came back and poured the urine on us.
“A week later, they started interrogating us. They were asking us questions based on ESN to know if we were members of ESN. We told them we never knew ESN. We never saw them on the street, we never knew how they look like. They scanned our palms to know if we were using guns but they got negative results in all the scanning.
“We were in DSS headquarters, Abuja till September 22 2021. Then one evening, they came and separated us because we were mixed with Boko Haram suspects and we were over 30 in number. They called some people out that evening, took them outside and brought another set of people. We were now 26 in number and we were there till the following day, which was 23 September 2021.
Very early in the morning around 4:am, they came with handcuffs and leg shackles. They chained us in pairs and took us outside. They told us that we were going to the soldiers for investigation and that when we were through with them, they would give us badges.
They took 26 of us in a coaster bus with stern-looking soldiers, making us look as if we were criminals or we were going to battle. They didn’t blindfold us as we were moving outside the gate. I looked at the clock there and it was 7am. But before we got to the place they were taking us to, it was around 5pm. They only stopped in the place they bought fuel and we landed in Niger State close to Benin Republic and Niger.
“They stripped us naked in that place, which was a DSS office in Niger State. They started telling us that we were now in their hands and that we didn’t have any power and took us inside the cell. We were nine in number and they took us inside very small cells. We were there till 21st June, 2024 the day we were released. They came to the cell on that day and opened the door. One of them started asking me my name and how I was arrested and I explained everything to him. They went to the next door and brought Pius Awoke and they asked the same questions they asked me. Where he was arrested, the date and all that and he gave them the same story that I told them.
“One of the officials told us that we were going to see the Commander of the Military Cantonment, and that when we got to him, we should tell him the same story we told them. They attempted to thumbprint us but it was not working because there was no blood in our hands anymore. Their system couldn’t capture it. They tried, tried and it couldn’t work. They took us outside where military men were in their large numbers with guns, and we saw the commander. The commander asked us why, where and how we were arrested, and we explained to him. After asking us some questions, he told us, happy independence. They blindfolded us, put us inside the bus. The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) chairman, Minna came and signed our surety and that was how we were released.
“The man they found an extra battery with, as well as so many other people are still in the cells. People are dying in the cells because of the mental torture and other forms of maltreatment. People are dying there, there is no food, sometimes you will not see water to drink. Many people are still there suffering and they need serious help.
“They gave us food three times in a day, but those three meals couldn’t even feed a-year-old baby. Sometimes, we had to fast from morning till night just to combine the three meals together. Yet, we would still be hungry.”
